Kirby Smart’s bye ‘tweak’ becomes even more important after Ohio State loss

Georgia was an underdog when it faced Notre Dame last year, in large part because it had Gunner Stockton making his first-ever start. The Bulldogs saw a 3-3 game with less than a minute to go in the first half turn into a 20-3 Notre Dame lead after the Fighting Irish returned the opening kickoff of the second half.

Ohio State fell behind 14-0 in Wednesday’s game, with Miami looking like the sharper team. Ohio State’s defeat only adds fuel to the idea that a bye is a bad thing if the goal is to advance in the CFP.

Georgia, though, might have an advantage over Ohio State, Indiana and Texas Tech in that the Bulldogs also had a bye last year. The long wait between games is not foreign to them.

From the jump, Georgia knew it was going to have to make some changes with how it prepared from last year.

“We talked to a lot of people, a lot of people who were in the playoffs last year, guys that had the bye, guys that didn’t,” Smart told reporters Wednesday. “NFL teams who had the bye in past years and didn’t play in the wild card. You just look at different ideas of trying to do things and simulate things and maybe try to do a better job.

“Look, we think our process works in terms of the layoff we’ve had. I’ve been part of a really good program for a lot of years now, and it’s worked for us, what we’ve done. You tweak it, but you don’t make major overhaul.”

While Smart has declined to share what tweaks have been made, players noticed a difference with how Georgia went about preparing for the game.

“I just feel as though we didn’t take our bowl prep as seriously as we should’ve, we didn’t take great advantage of it,” tight end Lawson Luckie said. “I think that’s the complete opposite of what we did this year. I’m not convinced any team in the country has had better preparation than us going into it.

“I love what we’ve done going into it, and I don’t think we could be any more prepared.”

Smart spoke on the importance of staying in shape, specifically pointing to how quickly fundamentals such as blocking and tackling can erode when you’re not practicing them every day.

In the four-team CFP, Georgia had no issue waiting for the Jan. 1 date. Smart was 3-0 in semifinals games in the four-team format.

Smart knows at the end of the day, it falls on him to have his team prepared for whatever adversity is thrown its way. In this case, that is a nearly four-week hiatus from football.

“You don’t go tackle live and hit people and risk injury, especially this time of year,” Smart said. “So your fundamentals, blocking and tackling, can deteriorate really quickly if you’re just worried about being in shape. So we try to attack it all. We try to simulate things, make things happen.”

The Bulldogs’ long layoff will come to an end at 8 p.m. Thursday when it faces the Ole Miss Rebels. They beat Tulane 41-10 on Dec. 20, meaning the Rebels haven’t had to wait nearly as long to play. Georgia’s last game came Dec. 6 against Alabama in the SEC championship game.